Drury Rotary Coast 2 Coast 2008

[Donor]

This will be pretty brief, as personally, I didn't have two wheels under me...

Arrived at the Autobahn at 0730 to meet up with a couple of mates from work, had a coffee and then they rode out to Kariotahi Beach to get ready for a hell of a ride raising funds for St John Ambulance.

One was on a C90T Boulevard, one was on a 1200 Bandit, and the other was on a Honda something or other with AMBULANCE written all over it, and loadsa medical shit in various panniers/bags.

What was I in?

A 2007 Mercedes Benz ambulance, with air con, comfy seats and a CD player - sorta like a gold wing, only much better turning circle...

So anyway, breakfast eaten, bullshit talked about bikes and stuff, free jelly beans from Star Insurance (The bastards, they put BLACK jelly beans in the packets!! ICK!!!) and then lots of bikers rode off on to the 1st check point.

I had the guy on the Ambo bikes wife in the passengers/pillions seat, so she and I decided to tag along at the back so's we could just cruise along...

I'll cut all the boring bits out and get to the meat and potatoes shite...

So me and her... we got fucking LOST after Tahuna, wound up going to Morrinsville, got run out of town with pitch forks and flaming torches for not being incestuously related nor knowing a single banjo chord between us, and somehow managed to work out how the hell the GPS unit worked, and limped to Paeroa via Te Aroha ... adding about 60km to our day...

Sigh...

So more checkpoints, more kilometers traveled, a shit load of bugs on the windscreen later and we rock into Whitianga.

Get to the Mercury Bay club, and pull in beside the Ambo bike ... to see him on the phone (in helmet comms... gotta love them!) ... next thing, he's peeling out and we're chasing him, lights and sirens to a biker who has come off.

So we pissed round for 5 mins, him, us and the local truck once they had hand cranked it and caught up to us (Merc power, ROAR!) and finally found the incident.

Biker is fine - brilliant high side (if a high side can be brilliant) and a rather sore but seemingly only bruised shoulder. So, we did the decent thing, we threw him into the locals ambulance, and pissed off to the pub to make sure everyone there was okay.

Then we came home, and nothing else happened.

In all, a good day that I fucking hated, cos I wasn't on my bike.

However, I have now technically done half the Coro loop, and have been past the Coroglen TWICE in one day.

I didn't have a beer there but. Go on, call me less of a biker... I deserve it...

Anyway, my story is a bit boring, but I'm sure there had to be at least one or two other KB bods there. Let's hear the glory stories dammit, they can only be better than mine!

Oh, and here's a shitty phone camera pic of a broken and probably written off SV1000 for you to all look at and make the appropriate tut-tut sounds.

Community service be damned, I am riding in this bastard next year, come hell or high water!

[menee]

I was there, it was a great ride again, and the weather not as hot which made for a great comfortable ride.
200 odd bikes I understand,and considering some of the riding I saw, only one off, was pretty good.
The usual suspects made good use of the Coroglen pub, while the most or some of us just enjoyed the days ride and the view, and even stayed 'til the end of the prize giving and made it home to AKL before dark... what a great day !!!

If you were there, see you again next year, and if you weren't, make it next year. This is one event that you really enjoy.

Big thanks to the organisers and the sponsors..

[Taz]

I also was there. Great ride. Good company. Crap poker hand. And a cruisy ride home before dark. Thanks Rotary.

[Gaz]

I was there too, hopeless hand... the chap that went off had only just left us a few minutes earlier... when we came round the bend he was standing over his bike probably swearing his head off. plus a couple of cars, and his mate that was chasing him down. The rest of the the day was fan-tas-tic. I've never been on those roads before, so did the rest of the coro loop and via Clevedon on the way home on Sunday. I'm surprised we didn't need more of our ambos. I counted a dozen drift-over-the-centre-line cockups on blind left handers.

[Blue Thunder]

As the bloke on the Ambo bike there need to be a few small corrections to Donor's account of the ride.
1st and just for the record the bike in question is a KT100 BMW ( an old bastard) and as Donor would say so was the rider! Hopefully the replacement will be here soon A Honda ST1300P.
As for Donor I am much endebted to him for giving up the opportunity to ride his own stead and rumble around in a large cage.( cheers mate alcoholic thanks i believe may be in order). More for putting up with my missus as her unofficial role as his NAGIGATOR!!!!!!!!!! Hope your ears aint ringing as much as mine are!!!!
As for the GPS did you programme the damn thing right? if I remember correctly at Kariotahi you were putting in some address in OSAKA!!!!!!
Oh and your cousin from Morrinsville still want to marry you!!!!!!!!!

Fortunately we had only the one rider in grief ,and so close to the finish, at least he is in better nick than his bike.

As for next year we will be there again and Donor can ride his
Thanks to all the KB'er that made the day and help the cause.

[gijoe1313]

Sounds like a good day was had by all barring that one incident, kudos and blingage to those community minded people with the skills but not the map reading ability!

I know you may one day make it to an event with two wheels, one day!